“No, I think I’ll hang on to the place for now,” I said, dusting off my hands. “I appreciate your efforts and if I need to reimburse you for anything just let me know. And if I change my mind I’ll give you a call.”
“Well, okay then.” She glanced at the house for a moment, then gave me a quick hug and got into her car and drove away. I stood on the curb, waving like a Beverly Hillbilly until she was out of sight.
“She sounded really disappointed,” Annabel said as I came back into the house and sat down at the kitchen table. Annabel was at the stove cooking burgers in my mom’s old iron skillet. I had been cutting up tomatoes at the table when Juju showed up to announce that she finally had a potential buyer.
“Yeah, well, she should have sold the place while I was away,” I said with a smile. “It sat on the market for three months.”
Annabel flipped the burgers and watched me out of the corner of her eye. “Are you glad that it didn’t sell?”
“I guess so,” I said. I picked up another tomato and cut it into slices. “I mean, it’s just an old house, but I have to live somewhere.”
“You could be living in a tiny apartment above a vet practice,” she said with a grin. Was that a hint, I wondered? Was she hoping that I would ask her to move in now that I was home and settled. We had spent every night together since I got home. Why shouldn’t we make it official?
I just said, “True.”
“What about the memories of growing up here?” she asked. “Are they going to bother you?”
I frowned at her and kept slicing. “Memories?”
“Your parents? Kenny? The fights?”
“Do you mean memories or ghosts?”
She turned the burgers over and put a lid on the pan to let them simmer in the grease for a minute. She picked up the bottle of Mountain Dew from the counter and brought it to the table to refill my glass. “Aren’t they one and the same?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess so, maybe. But I don’t believe in ghosts, and I don’t think memories can hurt you, unless you let them.”
“That’s good,” she said, brushing her fingertips down my cheek. She leaned down and kissed me on the tip of my nose. “I’m glad you’re home, Captain Mavic.”
“Me, too, Dr. Lee,” I said. I was glad she went back to her maiden name. I hated Bradley Bates with a passion in high school. It irked me to no end that he had married and abused Annabel like he did. If I ever ran into him in town maybe I’d bring up that fact and see what he had to say for himself.
“You know, maybe we can make a few memories of our own here,” I said with a casual shrug.
“What do you mean?”
“Like you said, it’s not much, but it’s better than living in an apartment above a veterinarian’s office.”
“Are you asking me to move in with you?” she asked, her eyebrows arched.
“I reckon I am,” I said. I set the knife on the table and wiped my hands on my shirt, then reached for her. I pulled her into my lap and nuzzled her neck as the burgers started smoking on the stove.
“The burgers are burning,” she said with a sigh.
“So am I,” I said as my hand went under her t-shirt to find her bare breasts. Her nipples hardened at my touch and she moaned in my ear. “Why don’t you turn them off and we’ll eat after.”
“After?”
“Yes,” I said, pressing my lips to hers. “After.”
EXTENDED EPILOGUE: Annabel
Shane and I got married six months after he left the SEALS. His Uncle Seth was the best man and Wendy was my maid of honor. We got married in the same little church my parents did, which thrilled them to death. Shane even asked my dad if it was all right with him if he married his daughter. My big, overprotective father cried like a baby and welcomed Shane with open arms.
We lived in the little house on Dilbeck Street and were as happy as newlyweds could be. Shane got a job working on an oil rig in the Gulf and my practice thrived. We were making a good living together and socking back money with the hopes of one day buying a ranch of our own outside of town. Shane was a cowboy at heart and loved to ride horses and tend cattle with his Uncle Seth. It was his dream to have his own spread, but land was expensive in south Texas, especially on the Gulf coast side.
The only downside was that we were so busy sometimes that we barely got to see each other. We’d pass each other coming and going and that was it. Shane was working double shifts and as the only vet in town, I was at the office twelve hours a day six days a week. Our marriage had its ups and downs, like most marriages I guess, but we were so head over heels we didn’t care. We were together and that was all that mattered.
* * *